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In order to comprehensively improve the electric power marketing business data integration level, enhance the data value mining and innovation driving ability, and promote the business-oriented level of data, it is an effective way to build the electric power marketing service data middle-platform. Referring to the middle-platform design concept and engineering practices of e-business companies, combined with the characteristics of the electric power marketing, this paper analyzed the design principles of the data middle-platform, designed the overall structure of the marketing data middle-platform consisting of the gathering data center, the public data center, the data extraction center, the service ability center and the supporting system, and studied the key technology framework of the data middle-platform. In the end, taking the electric service applying timing limit analysis as an example, the application scene of the data middle-platform is introduced.

Selective laser sintering (SLS) is a powder-based additive manufacture technology that uses energy provided by the laser to melt and fuse the powders and then stack layer by layer to form a printed part based on 3D model data. The powder quality significantly affects the performance of SLS sintered parts and thus the powder design and preparation is the core technology for SLS. This chapter introduces the powder sintering fundamental for SLS, as well as the intrinsic and extrinsic properties of polymer powders and their effects on the properties of sintered parts. The research on the electric conductive composite powders for SLS was mainly reviewed. The effect of powder preparation methods, fillers and polymers type on the formation of conductive segregation networks was discussed.

Accurate estimation of CH4 fluxes in alpine peatland of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau under extreme drought is vital for understanding the global carbon cycle and predicting future climate change. However, studies on the impacts of extreme drought on peatland CH4 fluxes are limited. To study the effects of extreme drought on CH4 fluxes of the Zoige alpine peatland ecosystem, the CH4 fluxes during both extreme drought treatment (D) and control treatment (CK) were monitored using a static enclosed chamber in a control platform of extreme drought. The results showed that extreme drought significantly decreased CH4 fluxes in the Zoige alpine peatland by 31.54% (P P 4 fluxes and environmental factors (Ts and SWC), except Ts, at a depth of 5cm (P 4 fluxes and environmental factors and significantly weakened the sensitivity of CH4 fluxes to SWC (P 4 fluxes was higher than with the topsoil (5, 10 cm) environmental factors under the control and extreme drought treatments. These results provide a better understanding of the extreme drought effects on CH4 fluxes of alpine peatland, and their hydrothermal impact factors, which provides a reliable reference for peatland protection and management.

In this paper, we propose a robust fault detection scheme for second-order multi-agent systems with external disturbance on directed graph. As the open-loop system of the multi-agent system contains disturbance term, there doesn’t exist an observer whose error dynamics won’t be influenced by the disturbance term. Hence we design observer for the augmented closed-loop system of multi-agent system based on the idea of unknown input observer, which is formed by adding an active disturbance rejection term to the control law. Then utilize above observers to generate residuals corresponding to all the agents of the MAS, the generators are only sensitive to the agents which the fault doesn’t occur, which means that there exists one residual generator different from others. Through further residual dynamics analysis, the residual corresponding to the faulty agent will be zero after the fault occurs, the others will fluctuate. Then we prove the existence of above observers that we design. Finally, the efficiency of the proposed scheme is illustrated by some simulation examples. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, some basic knowledge of graph theory and reduced-order UIO are introduced, then the problem formulation is given. Section 3 gives the main results of this paper.

In this paper, the fault-tolerant tracking consensus problem of a class of nonlinear leader-follower multi-agent systems against actuator faults is studied. The communication graph is any directed graph containing a directed spanning tree with the leader as the root. A fully distributed adaptive fault-tolerant tracking consensus protocol, which is based on the relative states of neighbours, is proposed to guarantee that all followers track with the leader’s state, asymptotically. Finally, a numerical simulation is provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed fault-tolerant tracking consensus protocol.

The revival of rechargeable zinc (Zn)-ion batteries was overshadowed by the deep-seated issues of dendrite growth and intricate side-reactions in routine aqueous electrolytes. Poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO)-based solid-state polymer electrolytes (SPEs) are potentially promising to address these issues, but the valid Zn2+ conduction and proper Zn electrochemistry have been difficult of accomplishment due to the high-degree crystallization of PEO and its interfacial incompatibility with stiff Zn metal. Herein, we bypass these obstacles by the in-situ polymerization of the stark but hand-picked monomer, poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether acrylate, characterized by the long side-chains with pendant ethylene oxide units, to construct the all-amorphous Zn2+ SPEs for the first time. The long side-chains favor the formation of amorphous matrix while the in-situ process endows compatible electrolyte/electrode interfaces, thus leading to a high ambient ionic conductivity (2.87 × 10−5 S cm−1) as well as low interfacial resistances. The demonstration of this SPE in solid state Zn/Zn symmetrical cells and rechargeable Zn/Mo6S8 cells with long life-spans signifies the highly reversible and dendrite-free Zn electrochemistry. Our results lay groundwork not only for Zn but for other multivalent-metal batteries suffering from poor bulk and interfacial ion transport to construct the rechargeable all-solid-state batteries.

Soil microbial communities are vital for maintaining functions of alpine wetland ecosystems, which have been shown to be sensitive to climate change and anthropogenic disturbances in recent decades. The diversity and community structure of soil bacteria and fungi are often highly heterogeneous across vegetation types and soil layers. However, the relative contributions of vegetation, soil properties, and spatial structure to variation in the microbial community remain unclear. Here, we studied the linkage between plant functional groups, soil water content, pH as well as nutrient contents and soil microbial diversity and communities in different soil layers (0–20 cm and 20–40 cm) in Lalu Wetland on the Tibetan Plateau. Plant and soil samples from eighteen plots of six sites were collected to determine the community structure of bacteria and fungi, plant functional groups, and soil characteristics. Our results showed that bacterial and fungal diversity at the 0–20 cm soil depth were significantly negatively (Shannon index, r = −0.65, P

Improving the thermoelectric (TE) performance of Cu3SnS4 is challenging because it exhibits a metallic behavior, therefore, a strategy should be envisaged to coordinate the carrier concentration (nH) and Seebeck coefficient (α). The coordination in this work has been realized through the Fermi level (Ef) unpinning and shifting towards the conduction band (CB) via addition of excess Sn in Cu3SnS4. As a result, the solid solution Cu3Sn1+xS4 (x = 0.2) has a moderate α (178.0 μV K−1) at 790 K and a high nH (1.54 × 1021 cm−3) value. Along with the lowest lattice thermal conductivity κL (0.39 W K−1 m−1) caused by the increased phonon scattering by carriers, the highest ZT value of 0.75 is attained at ∼790 K. This value is 2.8 times that of the stoichiometric Cu3SnS4, and stands among the highest for ternary Cu–Sn–S sulfide thermoelectrics at the corresponding temperatures. More importantly, this approach used in the case of ternary Cu3SnS4 provides a guidance or reference to improve the TE performance of other materials.

A series of NBT-KBT lead-free crystals with dimensions of Φ 35×10 mm were successfully grown by the TSSG method. The as-grown crystals possess rhombohedral perovskite structure at room temperature. The curves e(T) for all crystals show two abnormal dielectric peaks. The depolarization temperatures Td derived from the first peak of curves tan δ(T) vary with the KBT content, which are 130, 150, 140, and 115 °C respectively, for (100−x)NBT−xKBT (x=5, 8, 12, 15) crystals, being well consistent with the Td obtained from the temperature dependence of kt. A notable thermal hysteresis, ΔT≈35 °C, for ferroelectric-antiferroelectric phase transition was also disclosed for 92NBT-8KBT crystal. The investigation of orientation dependence for electrical properties disclosed the dielectric parameters show weak anisotropy. The piezoelectric constants (d33) are 147, 175, 205, 238 pC/N and the values of kt are 38%, 52%, 52%, 54%, respectively for (100−x)NBT−xKBT (x=5, 8, 12, 15) crystals.

Here we present a simple method to prepare a highly efficient three components nanocomposites via thermal degradation of layered double metal hydroxides (LDHs)@polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composites. Co7Fe3/CoFe2O4@C obtained from this method is applied to activate peroxymonosulfate (PMS) to degrade polluted organics and showed excellent performance. The best removal RhB efficiency of Co7Fe3/CoFe2O4@C (Co/Fe = 1:1) is near 100% within 10 min and the lowest ions elution (∼0.05 mg/L) under pH = 7, which is also better than the performance of the precursor Co–Fe LDH. Through further cycling experiments and degradation of p-nitrophenol, the stability and catalytic performance of the catalyst were verified. Finally, free radical scavenging experiments prove ·OH and SO4·- radicals participating in the reaction, which are the key factors for degradation. Based on the above, the derivation of the mechanism of Co7Fe3/CoFe2O4@C (Co/Fe = 1:1) catalyzing PMS to degrade polluted organics was proposed, and we consider this catalyst has great application prospect.

The phase relationships of the ternary Co-Ni-In system at 673 K and 873 K were investigated by means of powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy, and optical microscopy. Though CoIn2 does not exist at 873 K, the ternary solid solution Co1&minus, xNixIn2 exists at both 673 K and 873 K with different composition ranges. The Rietveld refinements were carried out to investigate the crystal structure of Co1&minus, xNixIn2 (x = 0.540, and 0.580) and Ni2&minus, xCoxIn3 (x = 0.200). The magnetization dependence of temperature (MT) curves of Ni2&minus, xCoxIn3 (x = 0.200) and Co1&minus, xNixIn2 (x = 0.540) are similar to those of the ferromagnetic shape memory alloys Ni-Mn-A (A = Ga, Sn, and In), but do not undergo martensitic transformation. The maximum magnetic entropy changes in Ni2&minus, xNixIn2 (x = 0.540) under 3T are 1.25 and 1.475 J kg&minus, 1K&minus, 1, respectively.

Building the omnichannel business platform for the electric power marketing and integrating all online service resources, with the features of customer aggregation, business integration and data sharing, are an inevitable pathway for the power grid enterprise to establish the customer-centric modern service system and realize its digital transformation strategy. The overall architecture of the omnichannel business platform is proposed and the detailed design for the eight shared service centres are given respectively for user centre, ticket centre, electronic bill centre, payment centre, order centre, points centre, online customer service centre, and messaging centre. Some typical application scenarios are described to illustrate the internal working mechanism of the shared service centres and the cooperation mechanism among them, such as management of comprehensive energy business, online interaction service for the electric power customer, and instant messaging delivery. The key technology applications and practices are discussed for the implementation of the business platform, such as improving data processing capabilities, building integrated services with fast response, and developing digital operational capabilities. The development prospects of the business platform are concluded finally, whose service centres would be gradually be evolved into an important component of the strategic business platform for the power grid enterprise by continuously precipitating the business capabilities and establishing the competent service centres.

Extracellular enzyme activities (EEA) in soils play a pivotal role in ecosystem processes, such as organic carbon (C) decomposition or nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) mineralization. Thus, EEA measurements can provide insights into the rates of ecosystem-level processes in peatlands, which will experience more frequent extreme droughts in the future. In the present study, the activities of seven hydrolases and two oxidases involved in the acquisition of C, N, and P were measured in response to simulated extreme drought events during the summer. The combined results of three consecutive years showed that the β-1,4-glucosidase and β-1,4-xylosidase involved in mediating labile-C decomposition increased by 102.63% and 100.63%, respectively. In contrast, the oxidases involved in mediating recalcitrant-C decomposition showed a non-significant decreasing trend, indicating that extreme drought significantly increased the decomposition of cellulose in peatlands. The C-acquisition enzyme, C:P -acquisition enzyme, and N:P-acquisition enzyme activities increased, on average, by 78.45%, 51.57%, and 36.57%, respectively, under extreme drought, impacting the rates of microbial growth and organic matter depolymerization. In addition, the results showed that changes in the C-acquisition enzyme were correlated with shifts in the soil water content, whereas soil oxidases were correlated with soil total C and N contents. Overall, the soil total C content explained 41.9% of the variation in EEA and ecoenzymatic stoichiometry. These results provide an improved understanding of hydrolase and oxidase activities in response to extreme drought events, thereby facilitating the prediction of long-term C dynamics in peatlands.

Cheap, high-rate and long-life batteries are urgently needed for grid-scale storage of renewable energy. Rechargeable zinc (Zn) batteries are potential candidates due to the high volumetric energy density and low cost of Zn anode. However, conventional Zn batteries employing metal oxide cathodes usually suffer from poor rate capabilities caused by the high migration barrier of Zn2+ in the metal oxide host structure. Here, we circumvent this dilemma by integrating Zn electrochemistry with bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl) imide (TFSI−) anion (de)intercalation into graphite cathode based on a Zn(TFSI)2/acetonitrile electrolyte. Owing to the fast intercalation of TFSI− along with the efficient Zn/Zn2+ redox kinetics, our Zn/graphite batteries enable an ultrafast charging rate up to 200C (to be fully charged in 18 s) and deliver a high power density of 16.3 kW kg−1, which is comparable to those of supercapacitors. Besides, the rational utilization of the acetonitrile-based electrolyte further endows the resultant battery with dendrite-free Zn deposition, high voltage output (>2.2 V) as well as wide-temperature adaptability from −40 to 80 °C, which is quite promising for grid-scale energy storage. Our work opens a new avenue for building high-rate low-cost batteries through coupling anion intercalation chemistry with multivalent metal anodes.

Coastal wetlands are considered as a significant sink of global carbon due to their tremendous organic carbon storage. Coastal CO2 and CH4 flux rates play an important role in regulating atmospheric CO2 and CH4 concentrations. However, the relative contributions of vegetation, soil properties, and spatial structure on dry-season ecosystem carbon (C) rates (net ecosystem CO2 exchange, NEE; ecosystem respiration, ER; gross ecosystem productivity, GEP; and CH4) remain unclear at a regional scale. Here, we compared dry-season ecosystem C rates, plant, and soil properties across three vegetation types from 13 locations at a regional scale in the Yellow River Delta (YRD). The results showed that the Phragmites australis stand had the greatest NEE (-1365.4 μmol m-2 s-1), ER (660.2 μmol m-2 s-1), GEP (-2025.5 μmol m-2 s-1) and acted as a CH4 source (0.27 μmol m-2 s-1), whereas the Suaeda heteroptera and Tamarix chinensis stands uptook CH4 (-0.02 to -0.12 μmol m-2 s-1). Stepwise multiple regression analysis demonstrated that plant biomass was the main factor explaining all of the investigated carbon rates (GEP, ER, NEE, and CH4); while soil organic carbon was shown to be the most important for explaining the variability in the processes of carbon release to the atmosphere, i.e., ER and CH4. Variation partitioning results showed that vegetation and soil properties played equally important roles in shaping the pattern of C rates in the YRD. These results provide a better understanding of the link between ecosystem C rates and environmental drivers, and provide a framework to predict regional-scale ecosystem C fluxes under future climate change.

A structural calculation model of a fly-bird-type concrete-filled steel tube arch bridge was established by using large general finite element software. The stability of the bridge during construction and in each working condition was numerically simulated and analysed. Linear elasticity, geometric nonlinearity and material nonlinearity stability safety factors were calculated and their influences on the stability were compared. At the same time, the main influence factors of the fly-bird-type concrete-filled steel tube arch bridge stability are discussed, the influences of the wind bracing number, form and stiffness on the bridge stability are calculated and analysed, and the reasonable values or forms range and the structural stability influencing factors under different value conditions are studied.

In this paper, the consensus problem of multiagent systems (MAS) with unknown disturbances has been addressed, by a novel feedforward control protocol. A distributed observer-based protocol, which extendes active disturbance rejection control(ADRC) to MAS under directed graph, has been proposed. Firstly, the local states and disturbances are estimated simultaneously by extended state observers. Secondly, states and disturbances based on observers have been applied to control protocol, which avoids chatting phenomenon and lagged effects caused by existing discontinuous control protocals, and the assumption about disturbances is relaxed. Thirdly, the case that the derivative of disturbance is bounded is discussed. Finally, simulations validate the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed control protocal.

The scarcity, richness, and other important physiological functions of D-psicose make it crucial to increase the yield of D-psicose. The production of D-psicose can be accomplished by D-psicose 3-epimerase (DPEase) from Clostridium bolteae (CbDPEase) catalyzing the substrate D-fructose. Although the catalytic efficiency of the CbDPEase has been raised via using the site-directed mutagenesis (Y68I/G109P) technique, structure-activity relationship in the wild-type CbDPEase and Y68I/G109P mutant is currently poorly understood. In our study, a battery of molecular modeling methods [homology modeling, adaptive steered molecular dynamics (ASMD) simulations, and Molecular Mechanics/Generalized Born Surface Area (MM-GB/SA)], combined with protein structure networks, were employed to theoretically characterize the reasons for the differences in the abilities of the D-fructose catalyzed by the wild-type CbDPEase and Y68I/G109P mutant. Protein structure networks demonstrated that site-directed mutagenesis enhanced the connectivity between D-fructose and CbDPEase, leading to the increased catalytic efficiency mediated by the functional residues with high betweenness. During the dissociation of the D-fructose from the Y68I/G109P mutant, planes of benzene rings of F248 and W114 could be continuously parallel to the stretching direction of D-fructose. It made the tunnel have an open state and resulted in the stable donor-π interactions between D-fructose and the benzene rings around 18Å. The stronger substrate-protein interactions were detected in the Y68I/G109P mutant, instead of in the wild-type CbDPEase, which were consistent with the binding free energy and Potential Mean of Force (PMF) results. The theoretical results illustrated the reasons that Y68I/G109P mutations increased the catalytic efficiency of CbDPEase and could be provided the new clue for further DPEase engineering.

Supernumerary centrosomes are commonly observed in cystic kidneys, but whether they are a cause or consequence of cystogenesis is unknown. Dionne et al. demonstrate that centrosome amplification disrupts renal development and is sufficient to induce cystogenesis in vivo., Centrosome number is tightly controlled to ensure proper ciliogenesis, mitotic spindle assembly, and cellular homeostasis. Centrosome amplification (the formation of excess centrosomes) has been noted in renal cells of patients and animal models of various types of cystic kidney disease. Whether this defect plays a causal role in cystogenesis remains unknown. Here, we investigate the consequences of centrosome amplification during kidney development, homeostasis, and after injury. Increasing centrosome number in vivo perturbed proliferation and differentiation of renal progenitors, resulting in defective branching morphogenesis and renal hypoplasia. Centrosome amplification disrupted mitotic spindle morphology, ciliary assembly, and signaling pathways essential for the function of renal progenitors, highlighting the mechanisms underlying the developmental defects. Importantly, centrosome amplification was sufficient to induce rapid cystogenesis shortly after birth. Finally, we discovered that centrosome amplification sensitized kidneys in adult mice, causing cystogenesis after ischemic renal injury. Our study defines a new mechanism underlying the pathogenesis of renal cystogenesis, and identifies a potentially new cellular target for therapy.

This paper investigates the problem of fault-tolerant consensus control based on fault detection for linear multi-agent systems with actuator loss of effectiveness and additive faults. We have proposed distributed fault detection filters firstly. On this basis, we have designed distributed control protocols for healthy agents and switching control protocols for possibly faulty agents, respectively. The control protocols are fully distributed, under which the consensus error converges to zero. Finally, a simulation example is introduced to show the effectiveness of the control protocol.

A new impact angle control guidance law with field-of-view constraint against stationary targets is proposed in this paper. A two-phased strategy with heading error shaping is used to design the guidance law. In the first phase, the missile heading error is driven to zero in finite time. In the second phase, the missile heading error is designed as a function of range. By selecting the guidance parameters, the guidance law can guarantee that the terminal impact angle constraint is satisfied and the maximum heading error does not violate the limit. The performance of the proposed guidance law is investigated with numerical simulations.

In this paper, we consider the robust global finite-time coordinated attitude tracking problem for multiple spacecraft with general directed communication graphs. First, a robust global finite-time attitude tracking controller is designed for single spacecraft based on homogeneous control method and integral sliding mode control method. Quaternion representation is used and the undesirable unwinding phenomenon is avoided. Based on the proposed finite-time attitude tracking controller, an observer-based distributed finite-time attitude tracking controller is designed for multiple spacecraft. Simulation examples are provided to demonstrate the obtained results.

Tight junctions have been hypothesized to act as molecular fences in the plasma membrane of epithelial cells, helping to form differentiated apical and basolateral domains. While this fence function is believed to arise from the interaction of four-pass transmembrane claudins, the complexity of tight junctions has made direct evidence of their role as a putative diffusion barrier difficult to obtain. Here we address this challenge by reconstituting claudin-4 into giant unilamellar vesicles using microfluidic jetting. We find that reconstituted claudin-4 is sufficient to form adhesive interfaces between unilamellar vesicles without accessory proteins present in vivo. By controlling the molecular composition of the inner and outer leaflets of jetted membranes, we show that claudin-4-mediated interfaces can drive partitioning of extracellular membrane proteins but not of inner or outer leaflet lipids. Our findings indicate that homotypic interactions of claudins and their small size can contribute to the polarization of epithelial cells.

Background Concurrent chemoradiotherapy is considered curative intent treatment for patients with non-operative esophageal cancer. Radiation-induced heart damage receives much attention. We performed repeated four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) to detect changes in cardiac volume during radiotherapy for esophageal cancer patients, and explored potential factors responsible for those changes. Methods Forty-six patients with esophageal cancer underwent enhanced 4DCT and three-dimensional (3D) CT scans before radiotherapy and every 10 fractions during treatment. The heart was contoured on 3DCT images, 4DCT end expiratory (EE) images and 4DCT maximum intensity projection (MIP) images by the same radiation oncologist. Heart volumes and other relative parameters were compared by the SPSS software package, version 19.0. Results Compared with its initial value, heart volume was smaller at the 10th fraction (reduction = 3.27%, 4.45% and 4.52% on 3DCT, EE and MIP images, respectively, p

Comprehensive biochemical, biophysical, genetic, and electron microscopic analyses of claudin-16 and -19 interactions show how claudin interaction can influence tight junction permeability and tight junction architecture., The molecular nature of tight junction architecture and permeability is a long-standing mystery. Here, by comprehensive biochemical, biophysical, genetic, and electron microscopic analyses of claudin-16 and -19 interactions—two claudins that play key polygenic roles in fatal human renal disease, FHHNC—we found that 1) claudin-16 and -19 form a stable dimer through cis association of transmembrane domains 3 and 4; 2) mutations disrupting the claudin-16 and -19 cis interaction increase tight junction ultrastructural complexity but reduce tight junction permeability; and 3) no claudin hemichannel or heterotypic channel made of claudin-16 and -19 trans interaction can exist. These principles can be used to artificially alter tight junction permeabilities in various epithelia by manipulating selective claudin interactions. Our study also emphasizes the use of a novel recording approach based on scanning ion conductance microscopy to resolve tight junction permeabilities with submicrometer precision.

Endogenous phosphorus (P) release from sediments is an important factor to cause eutrophication and, hence, algal bloom in lakes in China. Algal decomposition depletes dissolved oxygen (DO) and causes anaerobic conditions and therefore increases P release from sediments. As sediment P release is dependent on the iron (Fe) cycle, electron acceptors (e.g., NO3 (-), SO4 (2-), and Mn(4+)) can be utilized to suppress the reduction of Fe(3+) under anaerobic conditions and, as such, have the potential to impair the release of sediment P. Here, we used a laboratory experiment to test the effects of FeCl3, MnO2, and KNO3 on soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) concentration and related chemical variables in the overlying water column during algal decomposition at different algal densities. Results showed that algal decomposition significantly depleted DO and thereby increased sediment Fe-bound P release. Compared with the control, addition of FeCl3 significantly decreased water SRP concentration through inhibiting sediment P release. Compared with FeCl3, addition of MnO2 has less potential to suppress sediment P release during algal decomposition. Algal decomposition has the potential for NO3 (-) removal from aquatic ecosystem through denitrification and by that alleviates the suppressing role of NO3 (-) on sediment P release. Our results indicated that FeCl3 and MnO2 could be efficient in reducing sediment P release during algal decomposition, with the strongest effect found for FeCl3; large amounts of NO3 (-) were removed from the aquatic ecosystem through denitrification during algal decomposition. Moreover, the amounts of NO3 (-) removal increased with increasing algal density.

Magnetocaloric effect and critical behavior of Ni2In-type compound FeMn1−xNixGe were investigated in the present work. By partial substitution of Ni for Mn in FeMnGe, the magnetic transition temperature (TC) is tuned in a wide temperature range between 160 and 320 K with x (Ni concentration) varying from 0 to 0.4. A ferromagnet (FM) to paramagnet (PM) magnetic phase transition is observed and the magnetization has a sharp drop around respective phase transition temperature for all the compounds. The maximum magnetic entropy change is found to be 3.9 J/kg K and 4.1 J/kg K for a 5 T field change with x = 0.2 and 0.3, respectively, making them a promising candidate for magnetic refrigeration near room temperature. To investigate the nature of PM–FM phase transition, the critical behavior near TC was analyzed based on the Arrott plots. The critical values obtained with the conventional Arrott-plot procedure are very close to those predicated by the mean-field model. This suggests a long-range exchange interaction and a second order magnetic phase transition in FeMn1−xNixGe.

Novel sliding-mode control laws are proposed in this paper to stabilize a class of uncertain nonlinear systems. Considering that the sign function, which is often used in the sliding-mode control can cause chattering of control input, the saturation function is used to take its place in proposed controllers. What is more, not only the proposed controllers are continuous but also convergence to the origin asymptotically and in finite time can both be guaranteed in theory. For asymptotic convergence, it is only required that uncertainties and disturbances are bounded and the bounds may be unknown by virtue of adaptive laws. The obtained results are then applied to partial integrated guidance and control design for a missile, completing desired terminal impact angle and hit-to-kill interception. Finally, simulations are conducted on the nonlinear longitudinal missile model and results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

The microstructure of die-upset nanocomposite magnets with different height reduction was studied to investigate the mechanism of texture development in processes of die upsetting coupled with Nd–Cu grain boundary diffusion. At beginning stage of die upsetting process, inhomogeneous Nd–Cu grain boundary diffusion results in two kinds of different grain boundary microstructures. As for adjacent grains with grain boundary phase, the stress-induced solution-precipitation underlies the formation of the platelet-shaped grains and texture enhancement. Whereas there are two types of texture enhancement for the neighboring grains without grain boundary phase: grain boundary sliding and grain devouring. As die upsetting further proceeds, the stress-induced solution precipitation is the dominant mechanism for texture enhancement due to fuller Nd–Cu grain boundary diffusion.

The nonsmooth equations model for seepage problems is proposed based on the basic principles of the seepage dynamic system and the finite element discrete method. The mathematical programming method is therefore applied. The free surface of seepage is plotted through interpolation with pressure intensity on the nodes. The numerical results show the new method is simple and rapid in convergence rate.

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary malignancy of the bone affecting children and adolescents. Copine 1 (CPNE1) is a highly conserved calcium-dependent phospholipid-binding protein and may function in regulating signal transduction and membrane trafficking. In the present study, we investigated CPNE1 expression in osteosarcoma tissues and cells, and studied the effects of small interfering RNA (siRNA)-targeting CPNE1 on proliferation, metastasis and chemosensitivity of the osteosarcoma cells. The results demonstrated that CPNE1 was highly expressed in the osteosarcoma tissues and cell lines. Moreover, functional investigations confirmed that CPNE1 knockdown significantly inhibited cell proliferation, colony formation, invasion and metastasis in Saos-2 and HOS cells. Western blot analysis indicated that CPNE1 silencing downregulated the expression of many proteins associated with tumorigenesis and development, including Ras, MEK-1/2, WNT1, β-catenin, cyclin A1, IRAK2 and cIAP2. In addition, CPNE1 downregulation enhanced the sensitivity of Saos-2 cells towards cisplatin and adriamycin. The present study provides deep insight into the clinical use of lentiviral-mediated CPNE1 silencing for osteosarcoma therapy.

Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (WASp) is a key regulator of the actin cytoskeleton. Defective T - cell function is a major cause for immune deficiency in Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) patients. T cells originate in the bone marrow and develop in the thymus, and then migrate to peripheral tissues. TCR excision circles (TRECs) present in thymic output cells stably, which is used as a molecular marker for thymic output. We found that CD8+ T naïve cells of classic WAS patients were significantly reduced, and TRECs in patients with classic WAS and X-linked thrombocytopenia (XLT) dramatically decreased compared with that of HCs. TRECs were also reduced in WAS (KO) mice. These suggest that defective thymic output partially accounts for T cell lymphopenia in WAS patients. However, the correlation between the defect of thymic output and actin organization still remains elusive. We found that the subcellular location and the levels of of F-actin were altered in T cells from both WAS and XLT patients compared to that of HCs with or without stimulation. Our study shows that WASp plays a critical role in thymic output, which highly correlates with the subcellular location and level of F-actin in T cells.

An optimal impact angle control guidance law is proposed in this paper. The missile system is approximated under the small heading error assumption and the impact angle control guidance law is derived based on the approximated system to minimize the energy cost. The proposed guidance law has a form of biased PNG law and it's in accord with the previous result of PNG in the form acceleration command and time-to-go estimate. As the main advantages, the proposed guidance law has a simpler form and doesn't require the time-to-go estimate in the acceleration command. In addition, it also shows better performance in energy cost. Numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the performance of the developed method.

This paper investigates the problem of fault-tolerant tracking control for a class of leader-follower multi-agent systems with actuator loss of effectiveness and addictive faults. The communication graph among followers is undirected, yet the communication between leader and follower is directed. A fully distributed adaptive fault-tolerant consensus protocol is proposed, under which the consensus error converges to zero, asymptotically. Finally, a simulation example is introduced to verify the effectiveness of the control protocol.

This paper addresses practical issues in leader following rendezvous: sampled-data implementation with the consideration of input saturation. Due to the nonlinearity coming from these implementation constraints, the design of communication protocols becomes challenging even for a group of agents with simple linear-time-invariant dynamics such as an integrator. A nonlinear distributed controller is proposed to handle information lost between two sampling instants and input saturation. It is shown that under proper conditions on the sampling interval and the controller parameter, this new distributed controller can ensure the global rendezvous. Simulation results support the theoretic results.

Peatlands play an important role in the global carbon cycle and potentially have a significant impact on regional climate change. Restoring and rewetting the degraded peatlands is an urgent task. However, effects of rewetting on the carbon emissions of peatlands remain poorly understood. In this study, the process of rewetting a piece of the degraded Zoige alpine peatland was experimentally simulated and the derived results were compared with those of natural rewetting by monitoring CO2 and CH4 fluxes and other environmental factors before and after rewetting. The natural rewetting results showed that rewetting decreased ecosystem respiration (ER) by about 60%. Furthermore, rewetting increased CH4 emissions by 127%, decreased total carbon emissions (TCE) from 270 to 157 mg CO2 m−2 h−1, and decreased TCE from the entire ecosystem by 42%. The results of the controlled experiment showed that ER decreased gradually as the degree of rewetting was increased, and CH4 fluxes and changes in water level were significantly and positively correlated: CH4 fluxes increased from 0.3 (water level −20 cm) to 2.17 mg CH4 m−2 h−1 (water level 20 cm). After rewetting, the TCE of the whole ecosystem were significantly decreased. Regional observations showed that CO2 fluxes were significantly and negatively correlated to the water level; and the corresponding CO2 equivalent was significantly and positively correlated to the water level, while TCE were significantly and negatively correlated to the water level. Our findings indicate that rewetting can decrease carbon emissions and thus contribute in mitigating the adverse effects of climate change in alpine peatland.

Lignin as the most abundant source of aromatic chemicals in nature has attracted a great deal of attention in both academia and industry. Solvolysis is one of the promising methods to convert lignin to a number of petroleum-based aromatic chemicals. The process involving the depolymerization of the lignin macromolecule and repolymerization of fragments is complicated influenced by heating methods, reaction conditions, presence of a catalyst and solvent systems. Recently, numerous investigations attempted unveiling the inherent mechanism of this process in order to promote the production of valuable aromatics. Oxidative solvolysis of lignin can produce a number of the functionalized monomeric or oligomeric chemicals. A number of research groups should be greatly appreciated with regard to their contributions on the following two concerns: (1) the cracking mechanism of inter-unit linkages during the oxidative solvolysis of lignin; and (2) the development of novel catalysts for oxidative solvolysis of lignin and their performance. Investigations on lignin oxidative solvolysis are extensively overviewed in this work, concerning the above issues and the way-forward for lignin refinery.

Different characteristics of wastewater have different effects on the diversity and abundance of bacteria and archaea in rivers. There are many creeks around Taihu Lake, and they receive a large volume of industrial wastewater and domestic sewage, which is discharged into these creeks, and finally into Taihu Lake. The present study determined Illumina reads (16S rRNA gene amplicons) to analyze the effects of industrial wastewater and domestic sewage on the bacterial and archaeal communities at the different sampling sites along two creeks. The bacterial and archaeal diversity of the creek receiving sewage was higher than that of the creek receiving industrial waste. Proteobacteria dominated the microbial communities of all samples in both creeks. Betaproteobacteria dominated in the sewage creek, and its abundance declined along the creek. Certain pollutant-resistant classes were more abundant at the site near to the pollution source of the industry creek (e.g., Epsilonproteobacteria and Flavobacteria). Halobacteria belonging to the phylum Euryarchaeota was the dominant archaea at all sites in both creeks, while Methanobacteria was more abundant in the industry creek. The bacterial community was more affected by the distance between the sampling site and the pollutant source than the archaeal community, indicating that bacterial diversity and abundance could be a good index to distinguish domestic and industrial pollution, especially when the main pollution sources are difficult to identify.

In this paper, consensus tracking for a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems with a dynamic leader under general directed communication graphs is considered. Only relative output measurements are assumed to be available for each agent. Based on a distributed observer design, global consensus tracking controller using only relative output information is proposed. Sufficient conditions on the controller parameters are derived to ensure consensus tracking. A simulation example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Forest nitrous oxide (N2O) emission plays an important role in the greenhouse gas budget of forest ecosystems. However, spatial variability in N2O fluxes complicates the determination of key factors of N2O fluxes at different scales. Based on an updated database of N2O fluxes and the main edaphic factors of global forests, the magnitude of N2O fluxes from forests and the relationships between edaphic factors and N2O fluxes at different scales were analyzed. According to the results, the average annual N2O flux of the global forest was 142.91 &plusmn, 14.1 mg N m&minus, 2 year&minus, 1. The range of total forest estimated N2O emission was 4.45&ndash, 4.69 Tg N in 2000. N2O fluxes from forests with different leaf traits (broadleaved and coniferous) have significant differences in magnitude, whereas the leaf habit (evergreen and deciduous) was an important characteristic reflecting different patterns of N2O seasonal variations. The main factors affecting N2O fluxes on the global scale were ammonium (NH4+) and nitrate (NO3&minus, ) concentrations. With an increasing scale (from the site scale to the regional scale to the global scale), the explanatory power of the five edaphic factors to N2O flux decreased gradually. In addition, the response curves of N2O flux to edaphic factors were diversified among different scales. At both the global and regional scales, soil hydrothermal condition (water filled pore space (WFPS) and soil temperature) might not be the main spatial regulation for N2O fluxes, whereas soil nutrient factors (particularly NO3&minus, concentration) could contribute more on N2O flux spatial variations. The results of site-control analysis demonstrated that there were high spatial heterogeneity of the main N2O controls, showing N2O fluxes from low latitude forests being more likely associated with soil WFPS and temperature. Thus, our findings provide valuable insights into the regulatory edaphic factors underlying the variability in N2O emissions, when modeling at different scales.

This paper conducts a partial integrated guidance and control design for missile interception. With only the output available for feedback, a novel state observer is firstly proposed in the presence of unknown disturbances. The proposed observer reconstructs full system states in finite time. Interestingly, observer parameter is updated by an adaptive law. Then, a terminal sliding mode controller based on the proposed observer ensures the system states converge to zero in finite time, which is proved by the Lyapunov stability theory. The obtained result is applied to partial integrated guidance and control design of missile and hit-to-kill interception is achieved. Finally, a simulation example is presented, and a comparison to standard sliding mode observer is discussed to illustrate effectiveness of the proposed method.

The microstructure evolution in hot-pressed and die-upset magnets was studied to clarify the impact of Nd-Cu diffusion on microstructure and coercivity. It was found that Nd-Cu diffusion mainly occurs at the interface of the raw powders during the hot-pressing process. In the die-upsetting process, grain boundary diffusion is main reason for the homogeneous distribution of Nd-Cu. Moreover, Nd-Cu grain boundary diffusion decoupling the hard phases, grain morphology and the presence of Nd2O3 contribute to the higher coercivity in die-upset magnets with low height reduction. (C) 2014 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This paper studies the adaptive consensus tracking problem for multi-agent systems modeled as high-order integrators with uncertain nonlinear dynamics under directed communication graphs. By parameterizing the unknown dynamics of the agents and the unknown input of the leader, two decentralized tracking control laws are designed using the state information and only the output information, respectively. With state information, globally uniformly ultimately bounded consensus tracking with arbitrarily small tracking errors can be achieved and when only output information is available, based on high-gain observers, semi-global result can be obtained. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the controllers.

A hallmark of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is frequent relapse characterized by newfound resistance to formerly efficacious chemotherapies. The prognosis for SCLC patients is particularly unfavorable. Aurora kinase A (AURKA), a member of the serine/threonine kinase family, is overexpressed across many types of human tumors. Recent studies have identified AURKA as an important factor in tumorigenesis, but little is known regarding its specific roles in SCLC. The aim of the present study was to establish the roles of AURKA in the molecular pathogenesis of human SCLC. In the present study, we constructed a lentiviral vector to express siRNA against AURKA (LV-AURKA siRNA). As we expected, the viral construct effectively suppressed the expression of the AURKA gene and protein in H446 and H1688 cell lines. Additionally, RNA interference of AURKA inhibited the colony formation and subsequent growth of H446 and H1688 cell lines by increasing the incidence of cell cycle arrest in the G2/M phase. Furthermore, suppression of AURKA by LV-AURKA siRNA also increased apoptosis of SCLC cells. A potential mechanism for the increase of apoptosis is the downregulation of Bcl-2 and upregulation of Bax. AURKA gene suppression may provide a novel, effective therapy for SCLC patients by inhibiting cell division and increasing the rate of apoptosis of SCLC cells.

Summary In this paper, we consider the quantization effect on an adaptive motion coordination control law for passive multi-agent systems when the time-varying reference velocity is only available to the leader. Both logarithmic quantizers and uniform quantizers are investigated. Using tools from nonsmooth analysis and the Barbalat lemma, we prove that with undirected connected communication graphs, coordination problem is still solvable when logarithmic quantizers are used and the parameter convergence is also guaranteed when the basis functions satisfy certain persistently exciting property. When uniform quantizers are used, we prove that practical consensus can be achieved, and both the bounds of the consensus error and the velocity tracking error are proportional to the parameter of the quantizer. Simulation examples are provided to illustrate the results. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A partial integrated guidance and control design for an interception with terminal impact angle constraints in three-dimensional space is presented in this paper. A three-dimensional nonlinear engagement dynamic is considered here and full nonlinear six-degrees-of-freedom model of the interceptor with aerodynamic uncertainties has been accounted for. The partial integrated guidance and control design contains a two-loop controller structure. The outer loop, which generates directly the commanded body rates, is constructed, and then the inner loop is designed to track the outer loop commands. The main feature of the partial integrated guidance and control design is that it accurately satisfies terminal impact angle constraints in both azimuth and elevation, in addition to being capable of hitting the target with high accuracy. Moreover, the aerodynamic uncertainties and the target acceleration, which are assumed to be bounded, are considered by virtue of the proposed adaptive multiple input multiple output...